WITHOUT TAPES: GORTON RAMSAY

Jo slings her ax over her back.

Jo: wish i could sling my ex over my back and have him gone for good in the rearview of my life forever. but i gotta continuously go to court.

Puck walking, behind Bunim walking: no more court.

the ax is twice the size of the diminutive girl and yet it appears Jo is twice the size of it the way and manner the girl handles her piece.

 Cory and Rachel: *hiking and sweating* which green mountain is it?

Jo: *sipping Green Mountain Coffee* oh just aways over there. see it? it's my side-hustle. Glencoe.

Alex Escarno: Glen Coco?

Jo: thank you, Alex, for carrying the hot cocoas for all of us while we climb. it must be tricky balancing the mugs whilst you hold onto your piton.

Alex: oh it's just like when i was a kid in Catholic Cuba, i was a streetkid who had to make ends meet so i joined the circus of course. i liked to balance impossible things on a spinning stick. sometimes that stick was my dick. but it could be a piton, too.

Jo: feel ya, mate, i shuffle a lot of balls in my life as well. i go to school while i work. and i climb mostly, i like bigass boulders, i climb a shitton all the time. okay, gang, i want to see your butts! i'll be behind inspecting all your arse muscles making sure they're moving as you put one foot in front of the other like you have to with life and slowly ascend---no indoor mountains here, this is the real deal, the real thing---going through each crag and jumping over each waterfall, like the song.

Alex: that's the IN song now. Left Eye for life.

Bunim: so Jo, funny you talked about Mount Rushmore, we talked about it in our production meeting. some not naming any names wanted a Rushmore Rush Mush---or Mush Rushmore or Mushmore--- using mush dogs but i said no pets. sorry you had to redirect your plans but the whole illegal thing, you know? but i put in a call, a call was placed, to George Bush and Georgey has agreed to let us film at Mount Rushmore! yeah i'm thinking of having the next season of Real World be on Mount Rushmore!

Jo: really? that's wonderful news. i got a secret flat overhanging there. what changed Bush's mind?

Bunim: oh i happened to call him JUST as he was tearfully watching an anti-drug PSA 30-minute cartoon he intro'd.

Jo: come on, gang, a few clicks more! push yourselves past your limit! *stomp stomp pick*

the group reach Mount Rushmore in a bug. all catch bugs and are sneezing profusely. they try to stop the bleeding brown mucus by sticking Tootsie pops with Bill Murray on the spooled cover up their noses. underneath Lincoln's nose is Jo's timeshare, a quaint cottage of a house that is upside down acting as Lincoln's nose-hair mucus. wild sprouts and shrubs and wheat stalks encircle the area. upon entering the house the cast and crew see it is nice and cozy and hygge with an upside-down chimney flue spewing black smoke and a general sense of comfort and pre-911 security besides being upside down with the green windows always open letting in the windy draft of presidential sneezes. there is one huge beige bed in the middle and the walls are all carpeted for soundproofness since this is of course a sound studio which has never been used.

Jo: well if this doesn't prove the Earth is flat i don't know what will! i'm a geology student. yeah i was thinking of using the home studio for something i'm inventing called a podcast but i've been too busy.

everyone settles in as Alex slips out to do some more personal exploring on his own. he eases into it, very carefully, scaling, pulley-systeming it to exact toe-points and locations, as his steeltoe boots chip off ever so slightly little pieces and crumbs of Lincoln's stone nose. then SUDDENLY he loses his footing and slips off the face of the disc of the world!

Alex is never heard from again. at least for these next two episodes...

Bunim: where's Alex?

Judd: prolly went off to pee off the side of the world like i did. i hope i caught a midget's mouth. what do you want, bitch?

Rachel is sprawled out naked on the tiger skin rug near the fireplace.

Rachel: draw me like one of your real-American girls.

Judd: *begins sketching* only if that's REAL tiger blood on that carpet stain.

Cory climbs up the steps with her new-forming friend Jo. she accompanies her for moral support as Jo is ordered to honor a subpoena issued by her ex-husband who wants to challenge the restraining order Jo placed on him. Cory holds Jo's back through the whole proceeding, behind her out of camera view.

Cory: this is the first time i've ever sat in any sort of pew before, i like the feeling.

Judge Berman at her tower: move it along, people, move it along, people vs. who, next case. no subpoena jokes, i've heard them all. Roger Stone, what the fuck were you thinking? you glorified camerahog and B-rate Batman villain. see this bedazzled silver glove i wear? this gives me authority, i don't even need a gavel.

Roger Stone: not as sharp as what i have on. pinstripes. if it pleases the court, you have some nice pouches, your honor. i will pull my punches for this grave proceeding. what's the big deal? did you see the picture i used of you on Instagram, Judge Woman? it was a very flattering pic of you, you should see some of the filth on Instagram. yes that was a crosshairs, you're for gun rights, right, b? i mean b as in Berman.

Judge Berman: you have sullied the air of this courtroom by breathing in it. your immoral support has dishonored your sub-penis. you can only go on MSNBC from now on. next case.

Roger Stone: fine. i won't crack. want some crack? you fine woman? retrial maybe? Sully wasn't a hero anyway. Nixon was.

Jo's ex-husband arrives and stands on the plaintiff stand, he is shackled and shackles himself to the podium.

Judge Berman: sir you're representing yourself cos you say your ex-wife took all your money. i am sympathetic and not automatically anti-MRA but you don't have many rights being a convicted felon.

Cory: *nudges and punches Jo's back* be strong, girl, you got this, you can get through this.

Judge Berman: after hearing both side arguments and side hustles i've come to my conclusive version of my verdict: the restraining order is hereby upheld. only in Lake Tahoe. that's where y'all going, right?

Jo: *meekly with her head down* yes 'am. thank you, Your Honor. Her Honor. he was a fuckload for me but now that load is off my back so i can put a pack on my back.

Judge Berman: just need Rachel Maddow to go over the documents to parse out anything i missed and...…...*banging her gavel* HEAR YE HEAR YE. i hereby. that's it, throw the book at and close the book. the appeal is overturned. in my usual appealing way. my customary cute way. one last thing before McDonald's breakfast: i need to see the drawings that were made of these proceedings to document them and their outcome. will the courtroom sketch artist please stand up and submit her work?

Judd: it's me. here you go, hear ye.

Judge Berman: *flipping* this is a paper of a crayon drawing of a cartoon character with a big head, no hair, and no boobs. stick figure with four lines for limbs. and a triangle in the middle, is that her skirt?

Judd: her vagina, sir.

Rachel: *redfaced and incensed* what a horrible depiction! i am so mad. i am shocked SHOCKED. and i am shook. i am so gutted i will not be drinking my Yakult gut milk tonight! you said you won an Annie and an Eisner and a Michael Eisner! i thought you were gonna paint me French! i have long luxurious flowing hair! not to mention my tits, which i keep hidden in a modest pink fuzzy university sweater for just the right moment for only the best guys to peek!

Judd: at the peak? hey i'm a cartoonist whaddaya want from me!? it'll look better when it gets colored. but i'm not an inker. jesus………*within earshot* got bitches comin' outta my dick's ears. cartoon cunts on my cock.

Rachel: there goes the affair! *whispering in court* unless you promise to use that language on the carpet. jesus, i thought you were a real rightwing artist.

Judd: there is only one Frank Miller. we call him the batwing.

Rachel: *loud* sigh, i need another tattoo to get over this humiliation.

Eye Luggage: okay, joining us at the podcast today is not Marc Maron but rather Jussie Smollett.

Dirg: see? see? this is what i mean.

Eye Luggage: AFTER his successful surprise hosting of the Oscars. how was it, Jussie?

at the Oscars, the opening number is scrapped at the last minute and Jussie Smollett comes out from behind the blue carpet to address Hollywood and the world. there is a loud hush in the room.

Jussie: see? when i first told my story, it WAS believable in these times. THAT is the only point. sure, i was acting out, a scene i wrote i thought was good but the producers rejected it. but that's not the point. violence against the other is alive and well in the street of this society, and it's all too real. what can i say? i like magazines, not maga. Hollywood is rife with piles of cocaine everywhere on every craft-services table instead of food, it's an epidemic worse than opioids. Ace is the place where i turned my software into hardware. Empire's costume department needed hats, their stage department needed pullies, theirs were fraying. this was Chicago but this will NEVER be SNL. this is REAL, this is AMERICA, and this is no sketch. and with that, i bid all you fine folk adieu. and good night, i won't be validating or valeting your parking tonight, i gotta get up early. apparently i still have an early call to the set tomorrow, so...

the whole world cheers and applauds.

Eye: and i've just come across a paper which has been flung on my desk right now this very minute, urgent breaking news. it reads that...the Bump Administration is setting up a space force which will systematically go through each country eliminating homosexuality from the face of the Earth like the scourge it is, spokesman Steve Ganon says, that's the REAL class struggle? the struggle for class?

President Bump: no no that's not right. you read that too fast, assuming. see? see? this is what i mean.

Laertus: and in closing to close, let's take a minute summons with this podcast to wish a fond farewell and angel delivery to one of the good ones, a bright spark of creative spirit on that comedy stage gone too soon: Kevin Barnett. the genius behind Rel. fresh voice. i was waiting for Rel to do a tribute to him in its next episode but the series ended before this tragedy happened.

Kevin Barnett sits at the Red Circle table, stunned into stony silence. and blue. a blue hologram.

Dirg: that's the basketball Celtics guy with the Bezos hair, right?

Laertus: i can hear all of Kev's many jokes in my ear now, and all the audience laughter. he was an up-and-comer, as we all are.

Dirg: now that show DEFINITELY won't get a second season. Sinbad is once again out of work.

Eye: guys, gotta close up shop early, i need to take this, my beeper's blowin' up. getting many texts, a scroll wall, from Michelle Carter...

Osaka holds her first press conference since becoming #1. it is and goes awkward.

Osaka: hello. people don't get my sense of humor......oh, and i didn't fire my coach once i became #1. not a diva move. see i'm painfully shy and NEVER talk, my coach thought i didn't like him and he jumped out of our hotel window. don't worry, there was no glass in the window he's fine, he just left, never to be seen nor heard from again. my new coach is Anthony Davis.

at FBI Headquarters:

Mulder: Andy!

McCabe: Irishmen are the best. the best workers.

Comey: it's all very simple. the country is divided up evenly between those that call you Andrew and those that call you Andy.

McCabe: thanks...Jim, nyuk nyuk. i love being in the FBI, all you have to do is get on tv and say i'd rather not say, i want to respect the integrity of the process of the investigation going forward and not get into the details, or no comment. it's easy! just like Inspector Mueller does, right Inspector Mueller? my wife is running for President in 2020, why not, right? she'll run for the same reason Bump ran, but in reverse. it's Rod RosenSTEEN as in FrankenSTEEN, right?

Scully: the flatfoots and the rank and file and general public at large don't get to see your sense of humor like we do, Andy. we are so grateful that you let us in to experience your funny, you undo your tie with us and around us in secret coffee rooms. now that's what i call FBI witnesses!

Comey: you are so lucky, Ashley! you had a baby at just the right time! you can block out all of this noise and pretend America is normal again in the room of your tyke's crib.

Ashley Parker: not really. i left just as the Report will be coming out. i see all the tv reporters rushily getting ready, putting on their blackest dress. and me with this basketball in my belly. i play peek-a-boo hide-and-seek with a basketball with my kid.

Comey: as long as you're not feeding it lettuce, i have the real romaine case file on that and it's not a pretty picture like you, Ashley, it's a horror show you don't want to know. sir! you have entered the room. are you ready for your big day next week?

Mueller: nah. our longstanding AG Matt Whitaker told me he wouldn't release it even if i wrote a big 5000-page tome, so why bother? i'm keeping my hands clean and without bruises and scrapes and callouses and New York nicks and holepunch-punctures for when i throw out the first Nationals pitch! no one can accuse me of being a bleeding liberal when i haven't bled. with all the money i got from hawking that hand-cream on tv, i'm set for life! yeah that was something. i had never been in Whitaker's office before. the meeting consisted of the two of us sitting side by side on Victorian velvet chairs and staring silently at the crackling fire in the fireplace for two hours...

Avenatti: *hangdog eyes, which are still pretty and blue* sir, can i please rejoin the team? i beg you, i've learned my lesson, i won't run and divide the Schultz electorate. i can't do this anymore. i can't do pee cases again. i'd rather do President Bump's pee case, not R Kelly's.

Mueller: no. and that is my final answer. my final Jeopardy! All Stars answer, which i was a contestant on recently.

Avenatti: come on, papa! puh-leezzze!??? let me do the Jussie case! i have to have an in back to the Red Circle table to build my street-cred up again with my audience when i run again. either side i argue for i win.

Mueller: where is Matt anyway?

Matt Whitaker is roaming the backwoods of the FBI Facility in Quantico, Virginia. searching for grenades. he scratches his bald head in the twilight sun.

Bump: Matt? what are you doing out here? we out here.

Matt: don't make a move, sir, you might crunch the leaves. you smell that?

Bump: from afar you looked like Bigfoot.

Matt: i am. i'm the Missing Link. you smell that? it's the timestreams coming together. you don't feel that?

Bump: okay, before you disappear, give me all your stash of Bigfoot porn, i can use that, distribute that out, farm that stuff out to the other races.

Comey: Bob sir, you have the fattest goldmine in your hand. think about it, the Report will never be released, it will become the biggest X-File of all time, the Ultimate X-File!!!

Dirg: i mean the Report the Report the Report, that's all we hear about.

Laertus: it's not so much an X-File as a Project Blue Book episode, for it is the truth, a real case.

at the Obec Women's Club, purple tile roof:

Doryce: where are all the men? i thought this was a women's club! just a bunch of old bags i see!

Gladyce: well yes, dear, this is a safe space for all the biddies from area art schools and retired professors and waitresses to hang out, hang loose, undo their dresses, and not have to worry about acting polite prim and proper in front of men. a community organization for the betterment of all women in solidarity. the mayor's wife and dames of high society playing bingo and broadly being broads of a past age. playing pinochle and tinkling pee in front of each other.

Doryce: oh hell no, this ain't no sorority, you need to have a fashion show with naked men parading around showing off their latest wares. preferably of the Australian revue persuasion. i mean that's what a women's club is, right!!? what's the point of having that stage that looks like a pier up there if you don't use it. it's getting dusty and looks like it was from the '80s with that holey tile.

Gladyce: it was. used in PBS children's puppet shows.

Doryce: let me see what i can do, let me pull in a few favors and place a few calls from back in the day at witch college...

only one man struts his stuff on that stage. the Gorton's Fisherman. at first the other women think he is a stalker cos he looks weird in that yellow trenchcoat. but Gladyce calms nerves by assuring the rapt crowd of nervous nellies that he is in fact a fisherman in a yellow rainslick who sails on a boat and the whole nine...yards...of rope.

Gladyce: love, come out next time holding your ship's wheel so everyone knows and the audience is softened. and beer-battered. don't fall off the pier, love. oh Doryce, it looks like he hasn't done much of this sort of thing for old ladies.

Doryce: yes, love, but hold onto your pole. your fishing-spear pole thingee you shoot. like a gun. what you got under that yellow trenchcoat, love? show us, take it off, strip it off! like fish strips! and what's with that naughty kinky blue heavy rope tightly wound around your neck? it's very BDSM.

Gorton's Fisherman: it's my rope for catching fish sticks.

Doryce: you know believe it or not i've never actually had fish covered in cocktail sauce before. make a note of that for my next birthday, Gladyce. even fishsticks dipped in red stuff will do. now what's the deal with fish sticks, Mr. Gorton? seriously, i go to The Store this morning and there are NO microwaveable fish sticks! they're all for the greasy oven!!! how can i trust you? i can't have that, i was having a hankering for fish for the first time in like five years, i wasn't craving carving steak. come on, love, you gotta work with me here, you gotta reward me, i was thinking eating healthy.

Gorton's Fisherman: *tries to tip his hat but it slips off wetly* sorry, ma'am, it seems there are no more microwaveable fish sticks on stock. anymore ever. again. just the filets. but they're at Costco 30 minutes away.

Doryce brooms over to Costco and buys the last bag of microwaveable fish sticks in existence ever on Planet Earth again, a bigass bulky bag of 50 fish sticks with a Buddha on the cover, gish sticks. she eats them all in one sitting and spends eternity on the toilet……...until Gladyce learns the spell to break the curse of the bad fishsticks and release her beloved from the pain of an aching sore butt not in the service of butt sex.

Cory: great job in there today, my friend, i'm so proud of you!!! you were a strong mousey moody woman!

Jo: thanks, Cory, but stop hugging me, we English have pale enough skin as it is, you'll rub all the blushing red right off me.

Bunim: so we can still stay here but we can't film here anymore, i didn't get the locale permit. of course we wouldn't film anyway, we don't film anymore.

Steve is making the bed in the centre of the room. he hospital-corners the sheets.

Jo: oh, this is Steve everybody. he's been with me since the beginning, we go way back, since before geology was but a twinkle in my eye. i'm hard on my staff but it's only because i'm hard on myself. we're childhood pals, always strictly platonic. he's the best trailguide in the world, he'll whip you up into shape tomorrow morning, follow him for all your success. he's got a motor that just won't quit. he's always at the top of the mountain before you can drink your first coffee sip. i've watched him with one eye sleepwalk at midnight, roaming around like a silent-film actress, like Lillian Gish, bumping his head into the walls like a wild caged tiger. i've seen him hang from the rafters without him knowing he did it, completely unawares and unconscious of this house's ceiling. i've seen him from that high perch stare at me in bed naked all night. it's creepy but his eyes are closed so...it's even more creepy. i'll sure be glad to get back to thinking about trails again, not trials.

Judd: is your name really Steve? of course it is, of course you're a Steve, Steve.

Cory and Rachel: we love your hair, Steve. curly and looking like Mario with a fro. nice mustache.

Steve: uh, thank you. the girls i talk with online tell me that's a sexy look, to look like Gabe Kaplan, my favorite poker player. at least i think they're girls.

Pedro on the ceiling no one noticing Pedro: talking online?

Rachel rubs Puck's tummy from behind. and his back from in front.

Rachel: how are you feeling, honey? it was brave of you to make the trek with us feeling so under the weather.

Puck: i had a bout of pneumonia. cos it's raining on me all the time whenever i cry. i mean they wanted Whoopi Goldberg to host the Oscars but she was brought down by this same pneumonia. but i'm okay now, i think. perhaps some horseriding will do the trick. i'm well so i'm not gonna wait for the group and i'm gonna horseride on these mountains by myself alone. see ya!

Puck takes the green bit out of the horse's mouth, it was a 100-dollar bill. he gallops fraughtfully and focusedly along the grey mountain of Mount Rushmore. before the horse can neigh and buck up and draw a heavy breath through its mucus-gilded nostrils, the horse and Puck slide off the cheek side of the facing silvery mountain!

BUT they make it! the horse flies in Puck's reinsless hands!

Puck: *softly to himself so no one hears or can hear* SEE! i knew it! i knew there was magic. i knew i had the magic if i trained hard enough for it. it's magic powder and potion and mist, sure, but it's mostly belief.